[MUSIC PLAYING]

[DESCRIPTION] Touro Talks intro displaying photos of students and faculty across the university, fading into the Touro University logo.

[TEXT] Touro Talks, Touro University, Autism and Employment: Lessons from the Winters Center for Autism, November 15, 2022. Touro Talks is sponsored by Robert and Arlene Rosenberg.

[DESCRIPTION] Sam Levine stands at a podium, and speaks to crowd at Touro Law. The Touro University logo is at the bottom right.

[SAM LEVINE] Welcome those of you who are in the room with us here at Touro Law school, and welcome to those of you who are viewing and joining us online on our webinar, from both near and far. And welcome to those of you who will be watching this on the recording.

I'm Sam Levine. I'm Professor of law and director of the Jewish Law Institute here at Touro Law school. And it's such a pleasure for me and an honor for me to welcome you all again, both those of you joining us in the room here at Touro, here in Central Islip, New York, and those of you across the world who are joining us online.

A number of years ago, I initiated the Disability Rights and Inclusion Project here at Touro Law School. Over the years, we have hosted and organized a number of programs and events dedicated to promoting disability rights and inclusion. In recent years, we have focused in part on promoting autism awareness, inclusion, and acceptance. And most recently, we have organized a number of webinars, international webinars, exploring various areas of autism and employment.

Today's program is an important step for the Disability Rights and Inclusion Program here at Touro. First, we're so pleased to have the opportunity to partner with the Winters Brothers. Those of you who are here in the room, if you're from Long Island, those of you who are watching if you're from Long Island, you're probably familiar with Winters Brothers.

You've seen their trucks. You've seen their bins. We have some bins right outside here at the law school. And the Winters Brothers are, of course, well known throughout Long Island and beyond in part for the work that they do in the community. And today, we are so pleased as neighbors to the Winters Brothers, in addition to and complementing our work and promoting disability rights and inclusion, promoting autism employment.

On an international level, we're so pleased to partner with our neighbors here in Long Island. Today's program is also important to us because we have this opportunity to engage in what we call a hybrid model of presentation. We've had in-person events. We've had webinars.

But I think this is the first time that we have such a robust, in-person audience with all of the opportunities that brings for personal interaction. And at the same time, we have viewers from literally across the world. And now we have some audience out, I guess, West of us earlier time in the day. For those of you on the West Coast of the United States, thank you for joining us.

We, of course, have viewers from across the United States. And I know we have an audience in various parts of Europe and all the way out to Australia. So we're so pleased to have all of you from across the world, and we're so pleased to have many of you here in the room with us.

And finally, today's program is an important step forward for us because we have the opportunity to announce the establishment of the new DALSA, the Disabled and Allied Law Students Association here at Touro Law school. For those of you who are not familiar with DALSA, DALSA is a national organization with chapters at schools across the country.

And through the efforts of John Kelly, second-year law student here at Touro, and the rest of the students here-- and I thank you all for joining us, all the students. And on that note, I want to make sure to take the opportunity to thank everyone who has helped organize today's event, the administration, the various offices that play a central role in organizing all of our events here at the Law School, the staff, the faculty. And on that note, I want to take this opportunity, and I'm pleased to introduce to you, John Kelly, who will introduce our featured speaker for the day.

[DESCRIPTION] John Kelly replaces Sam Levine at the podium.

[JOHN KELLY] Thank you, professor. For those of you that don't know me, I'm John Kelly. I'm in my second year here at Touro and a founding member of DALSA, as Professor Levin said. I'd like to thank everyone for being here, even if you're only here for the free pizza. I know I reminded a lot of people yesterday in school, so just a thank you again for being here.

We're so excited to have Chris Ponzio here from the Winters Brothers' Center for Autism. We couldn't have asked for a better speaker to launch our first event. I owe a special thank you to DALSA's executive board, Rachel, Jordan, Tyla, Brandon, Tony, Anna, and Clay. You guys do a great job.

And this is the first of many events, so buckle up. We got a long way to go. I hope you guys are excited.

I can't thank Marie Koch enough for her help as well. And the people over in the Development Office on the fourth floor at Touro, they do a great job. Most importantly, I would like to thank Professor Levine for making this all possible. If it were not for a conversation we had about a year ago about the importance of inclusion, we wouldn't be here today.

That conversation turned into a few more meetings, where professor helped us to create DALSA. And with that, we established an organization meant to discuss the issues surrounding including individuals with disabilities. At DALSA, we aim to educate our fellow law students and our community with respect to the goals that we have for a more inclusive school system, workforce, and society. This seminar is a perfect example of what we will be doing as an organization here at Touro.

For my entire life, I've come to learn the importance of inclusion during the developmental years, for young children and adolescents. But the Winters Brothers has been breaking down barriers to enhance inclusion opportunities in the workplace. So we're elated to have you guys. We're super excited. So without further ado, Christine Ponzio.

[DESCRIPTION] Christine Ponzio replaces John Kelly at the podium.

[CHRISTINE PONZIO] Thank you, John.

[JOHN KELLY] Thank you.

[CHRISTINE PONZIO] Good afternoon, everyone. Can you hear me? Is that working? OK.

Well, it is an absolute privilege to be here today. I have to thank the faculty, staff, and members of Touro Law Center. Thank you for having me today. Professor Levine, it's just been a pleasure to get to know you and understand what is happening here at Touro Law but also the reach and scope of how information is being shared internationally.

It does terrify me to think that this is one of the first hybrid presentations, but I trust the IT team that you have. They've been fantastic.

Being here today is even more special because, as John Kelly and I spoke about earlier, the first time I met John, his mom was pregnant with him. So I felt really old when I got here today. But just a special thank you to the DALSA students, to John, Doctor Levine, you're the voices of people who sometimes can't be heard.

And you are going to be able to change things in a way that will be so powerful and so instrumental, not just for people who need your help today, but for people who aren't even born yet. So choose your path wisely, and continue to remember how you represent so many people that really are often not represented or maybe not thought about with as much grace, as much dignity, and as much governance as they should be. So thank you.

And thank you for everybody who's here today in person. I also thank everybody who's tuning in online. It's really just a pleasure to be here, and I'd like to get started.

So my name is Chris Ponzio. I have a background for 34 years now in-- I'm a special educator. I've been a school principal, studied communications, strategic communications because it's usually at the core of every challenge is communication issues, and have really been privileged to spend my 34 years working predominantly with children and adolescents with autism and, most recently, adults and other disabilities, but certainly spent more time working with people with autism, even before autism was recognized on IEPs as a classification.

So it is a privilege to be here today. And it's a blessing for me to be here because, knowing that we have a business like Winters Brothers, to have a corporate entity, champion services, invest in services and support for people, specifically adults with autism, I feel like it is really a privilege to also be part of that team.

So I just want to give you a little bit of background, Joe Winters, who served as the chairman and CEO of Winters Brothers and really grew it into the business that it is today, is our founder. He tragically passed in January of 2021 at a very young age. But one of the things that he did so well was articulate a vision, vision for winters brothers, vision for how to help people with autism.

And he communicated that vision to me, never knowing what would happen, and just a year after I came on board. But we have been able to really provide training opportunities for adults with autism in a way that I think is very unique because we have the largest waste company. Who ever thought autism and garbage?

You don't think it's like a natural connection, but it's really about the Rolodex of the private sector. It's about the context with businesses.

So today, my colleague Chris Cortale was scheduled to join me. Unfortunately, he's ill and cannot be here and just too ill to participate remotely. So I'm going to try to do him justice.

I don't know if he was able to log on because he really wasn't feeling well, but he'll get to watch it if he's not joining us. So I'll do my best to not only share the perspective of the Center but to also share Chris's employment experience, which represents one person. So everybody's employment experience is a little bit different, as all of ours are.

But we certainly can learn from Chris and really understand, if you're a parent sitting in the audience, the importance that maybe employment can have for your son or daughter, if you are a student, the importance of understanding law and how to incentivize employing people of neurodiverse backgrounds, and if you're an employer, you have a business or you work for a business, how you can really be a champion on the inside to be able to diversify your workforce.

Is this a joke, Peter? [LAUGHS] Let's see. There we go. All right. Thank you, Peter.

So what is the mission of the Winters Center for Autism? We're really a dynamic partnership of people working together. So we focus on job training, but it's really to enhance the quality of life.

Think about us as we graduate high school, as we go on to college, or we choose our trade or profession. We want to work, but we also want to have a good quality of life. So we do that through job creation, training, and placement.

And also the other piece, which I think this is really the piece that has attracted me to work and serve as the director of the Winters Center for Autism, is that we're helping businesses develop and implement programs to employ people with autism. So oftentimes I'll meet with a business, and they're very interested and eager to help.

They just don't know how. They don't know what to do. So I like to describe it as serving as the bridge, helping people to get the job training or continuing some of that training that they may receive in high school, being able to be assessor and the teacher to understand, what are these young men and women really good at?

What are they interested in? How do we match their aptitude and interest. But then also doing that with caring Long Island businesses to create a recipe for success.

So why did we choose autism? There's a lot of intellectual and developmental disabilities. Why did Joe Winters and the Winters Brothers way systems really devote their business model, their finances to creating something like this?

The Winters family had always been very philanthropic in the autism community. Their son, Sean, is 28 years old. He's on the autism spectrum and, for many years, thought that work might not be an option for him.

He actually today works five days a week. He does a recycle route, where he assists. He's not a driver. He has 50 stops, and he also works at Pal-O-Mine at a farm out here in Suffolk County as a groomsman.

So before all of that happened, Joe Winters and his wife Michelle knew that they wanted to give back to autism in a big way. But they wanted to make sure their son was settled first. So being a very strategic businessman with high business acumen, Joe Winters partnered with another organization, and we'll talk about how that evolved.

But understanding what's happening and why autism, 1 in 44 young people are diagnosed with autism. They're our neighbors. They're our children. They're our friends. They're our family.

So this is something that, as a society, we all take part in the responsibility. An estimated 50,000 people with autism enter adulthood each year. So on Long Island, I believe it's somewhere between 8,000 to 10,000 adults with autism living on Long Island today.

We have a workforce crisis. We have adults with autism that are largely under unemployed. We have a really talented, untapped pool of potential, and we'll talk about that.

There's a huge gap in the number of services for adults with autism. So spending most of my career working with children with autism, I watched not really many services being available just for children with disabilities but specifically autism to a robust amount of services becoming available after years of advocacy, predominantly parent advocacy, that changed our public school systems, that changed law and made things more accessible.

So here you have this wave of children and families who, through advocacy, made great changes. Now these children literally graduate from school at 18 or 21 on a Friday or Tuesday or whatever day the school picks, and they have this great safety net, oftentimes, not always but oftentimes this great safety net of relationships they've developed over time, teachers that have really guided them, guidance counselors, bus drivers.

Just think about all of those supports. And many people who are not on the autism spectrum or not affected by a disability will go on to their trade, go on to college. And they'll find other natural supports.

Not necessarily true for people with autism. Monday rolls around. You're 18 or 21. You've aged out of the school system. The supports look drastically different. I see the parents. I know who the parents are here because they're shaking their heads like, yes, they look drastically different.

And then think about a pandemic hitting, talking about modern day, current day. Many of these young men and women were then home and isolated. And many of us were home but being able to understand what happened and the loss of all of those safety net supports, those things that you and your family and your teachers advocated so much for.

And adults with autism have skills and talents to offer in the workplace. So I talk about the silver lining of the pandemic. We just presented actually at a conference in Dublin on this. The silver lining for us was that here was a pandemic where there were a lot of essential businesses were open.

We needed to eat. We needed to get food. We needed somebody to pick up our trash. Winters Brothers says one of it's-- not always, but usually garbage is recession proof. And what happened is we had young adults who could be safe, who could practice some of the guidelines, all of the guidelines set forth by our government, and wanted to work. And we had businesses who were looking for people who wanted to come to work.

So we used that opportunity at Winters Center for autism to actually match people on the spectrum with businesses that were looking for employees and then were able to do a job training program in that space. So they weren't actually working for the company yet, but we were using their space to train them how to do that.

And not a whole lot of science went into that. It was a lot of, let's jump in, and let's make that work as we go. And the data that we found is very impressive, that right now 80% of those original 20 people are competitively employed. So they're earning a paycheck. So that was a huge success for us.

And just to share, it doesn't mean that they're working 40 hours. That's part of what we talk about adaptations and accommodations. So why autism?

85% of adults with autism are underemployed or unemployed. When you think about what we've been hearing about unemployment and not having a workforce and the talent of Long Island or New York leaving the state, how do we work to try to tap into untapped talent pools?

I believe that people with autism are absolutely an untapped talent pool, and people who want to work, people who do well at work, what we want to do and what we've been doing is helping people get the training, the preservice training. So some of the things, whether it be learning the processes of how people-- time and attendance, understanding how people take lunch at work, what are your options? What do people do when they need a break? some of those other skills that are sometimes kind of just more subtle, but then the job itself, which is usually the easy part.

So this was Joe Winters' goal. And I'll tell you about winter's brothers and how this was really his vision for the winter center for autism. In the next five years, all Long Island employers should have people with autism as part of their workforce. And Joe put his money where his mouth was.

He actually used Winters Brothers and partnership with a local nonprofit, NSSA, to train and hire adults with autism. And because he did that firsthand, he was able to open up the doors of his business to have other businesses come in and observe and see-- just really quick, one of my favorite stories, in the first four or five months that I was employed, I worked in Winters Brothers in the offices because we were building the Center.

And I had another waste company, the chairman come in and wanted a tour because he wanted to see, what is Joe doing? What's happening here? He had this great staff. I really want to hire people. I just want to see what it looks like.

So we did this visit, 500 employees, walked all around two buildings. And at the end, he's like, when do I see the autism program? And I said, well, you just did. He's like, I didn't see it. And I said, but that's the point. That's the point.

These are employees who are working who if they need some special accommodations or adaptation-- and then he said, well, can we go back around and you show me? I said, no, not at all. [LAUGHS]

So here's the Winters Brothers' story. And I always offer this caveat because, for my first year or two at Winters Center for Autism, nobody really talked about this. And I think it's so important that people know this and Joe Winters' legacy.

In 2015, Winters Brothers worked with NSSA to create two jobs for adults with autism. Neither one of these two people was Joe Winters' son. Joe and Michelle's son didn't start working until much later, and I think it's important for people to know that because this was really something that was about doing something good for business.

This wasn't motivated by, I want to get my son a job. It was really, I want to understand, how do we do this? And how do we benefit in the business world? And our tagline is higher for a higher purpose.

So this is where my colleague-- and, Chris, if you're watching, Cortale, I will try to make you proud. This is where Chris was going to jump in and really talk about his experience. He was one of the first people hired.

He's a young man on the autism spectrum. He worked at Winters Brothers, started as a trainee. And there's a short video you'll get to watch of him talking about his experience because he couldn't be here today.

But just to give you a little idea and sense as to how this started for him, he started working at Winters Brothers and administrative clerk. So these were some of his tasks-- shredding, filing, mailroom, inventory, deliveries. When you think about the largest waste company on Long Island, they have eight mailboxes across three blocks of an industrial park.

So it's not taking three pieces of mail a day. It's a huge mailroom operation, which he thoroughly enjoyed, had to practice safety, had to practice wearing safety apparel, had to know how to navigate an industrial park with really large trucks, and also doing some of the tasks that specifically Chris started in the accounts payable department.

And then what happens in a business? The other departments are like, well, how come they're getting help? How come somebody's there to help their department? What about our department? Accounts receivable is busy.

So then he was able to expand his hours and work in additional departments. And there's nothing better than feeling wanted, feeling like you're the guy who really, everybody wants to work with.

Sales and customer service, so one of the things, when Chris came to the business, he really wanted to work in sales. To work in sales at Winters Brothers, you have to drive because you have to be able to go off site to customers. You also have to be able to go through specific sales trainings.

So this is where the company really got creative and said to Chris, we can start you off by going to trade shows so you can experience that. You can go with our team. You are our team, be part of our team. But you come up with an enterprise back here.

So Chris actually developed a snack cart for employees. And the coffee truck guy wasn't very happy. But he did a survey. He did a quarterly survey, asked people what snacks they wanted. And he was netting a profit of between $5,000-- and during the pandemic, it dipped to about $3,200 and then rebounded-- and decided to donate that back to nonprofits.

So incredible opportunity for winters brothers to have one of their employees do something like that, incredible opportunity for Chris to practice his sales skills and be able to do something he loved, and also practice customer service, and then as he became more creative, seasonal raffles. But one of the things now-- and you'll see, I don't want to jump too far ahead-- is Chris had to transition that job. So he developed a succession management plan to teach another individual how to take over the sales card.

And it was really fantastic to see the amount of effort and time he put in that because it was very important to the company that that continued in his absence. So this is a quote from Chris. "I learned a few things about being an employee."

This is Chris, by the way. "You got to show up. You have to be on point. You have to be a team player. You have to keep your commitments. And other people depend on me to get the job done. I'm important."

It's what we all want. We want to matter, just trying to matter, trying to have purpose, trying to make an impact. So you'll hear from Chris as soon as the arrow pops up, I'm told.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[CHRIS CORTALE] So the story goes, I was actually Joe Winters' first employee with autism. Prior to 2015, I was a volunteer as part of my day services program. Then in April 2015, I got offered a job. I felt excited and proud, but I officially got the job.

When I first came here, I did basic work like filing, shredding, and other miscellaneous tasks. After about a year, my experience expanded. I went on sales calls. I went to trade shows. And I officially started a microbusiness, which, all of you know, the snack cart at Winters Brothers.

Earlier on in the business, I donated all of the proceeds to Nassau Suffolk Services for Autism. In the later years, when I learned about the Winters Center for Autism, I made an executive decision to split the proceeds. Half would go to Nassau Suffolk Services for Autism, and half would go to Winters Center for Autism.

[APPLAUSE]

My experience may make it seem like these tasks and jobs are easy, but when in the workplace, having an autism diagnosis presents many challenges. For example, I get very anxious and overwhelmed. However, I have learned coping strategies to get through the day at work like meditation.

There are many employees at Winters Brothers that have helped me learn job-related skills and, more importantly, to cope with the stresses and social pressures of the workforce. I like to recognize Leslie, Will Flower, Willie Dunn, Gina Alneri, Stephen Joseph, and, of course, Joe Winters for giving me opportunities--

[APPLAUSE]

--and exposing me to new tasks and for dreaming equal and giving me the same benefits as every employee, like working out in the gym. I am so proud to work for this organization, and I just want to thank everyone for making a difference in the autism community.

I am honored to be a part of this groundbreaking ceremony, and I wish you all the best of luck as you continue to develop the Winters Center for Autism.

[APPLAUSE]

[PLAYBACK ENDS]

[CHRISTINE PONZIO] So that was our groundbreaking ceremony, and town supervisor Rich Schaffer was present and had to follow that. So when he got up there, he said, I think I know who's going to campaign for my job next.

Chris's life has totally transformed. He started in a day hab. And he was really working on job training tasks, but wasn't seeing how that was going to connect to a job in the future. So having watched Chris and coming in many years after he started, it was just such a great example of what we could do as employers, as coworkers, how would we be able to be those champions that help people succeed?

Chris talked about meditation. He talked about being able to deal with anxiety at work. So we all experience these things. Many of us have learned the socially appropriate ways to manage that.

We've learned that you can't stand up at your desk and yell. We've learned that you can't sit in the middle of the cafeteria and meditate. We've learned socially appropriate ways. So this is part of what happens at the Winters Center for Autism, we actually teach relaxation meditation. And because Winters Brothers was such a committed employer, they had somebody on staff who worked with their HR department to really come in and be able to teach some of those small skills.

So these are things that aren't really overwhelming. They're not a drain on the time. But what you get back in an employee and productivity and success. And I think to say it the way that Joe Winters and his son Patrick say it is, when you just see what it does for your entire business, it really lifts everybody up. So this was actually Leslie and Chris.

Just to go back for a minute-- can I go back? Oh, I probably went back too far now.

[DESCRIPTION] Christine Ponzio points to powerpoint screen.

[CHRISTINE PONZIO] See all those boxes?

Chris started by doing a lot of this filing into the cabinets because they came from another location. So when we think about the value of individuals who really enjoy repetitive tasks-- not everyone. Everyone is different. But there are some tasks that we all need to take place in our businesses, whether it be digital, whether it be paper, lots of different examples we'll talk about.

So this is actually Chris talking about Leslie, who was his workplace champion. What is a workplace champion? When we go into a business, I don't walk around and say, oh, you're going to be the workplace champion. I'm going to send you a PowerPoint. Please review it, sign off that you've read it, and please follow all the instructions.

Workplace champions self identify. They don't even know they're doing it sometimes. So workplace champions are usually people who either within a department or people who within a company really want to help people succeed. Often we call them mentors.

So as you go out into the business world, as you become attorneys, you're going to go into companies and practices, and you'll have some people hopefully mentor you. It's a very similar concept, but what we do at Winters Center for Autism is we offer these workplace champions some guidance because sometimes it doesn't always have to go through HR. A workplace champion could truly transform somebody's life.

So she was like a work mom to me. She encouraged me treated me, treated me like an equal. She believed in me and helped me to work with other departments. And I think the last bullet is the most important. I felt comfortable asking her for help.

So when you just stop and think, whether you are currently working or you did work while you were in high school, who did you go to when you needed help, you weren't sure about something? Everybody at work should have that, and sometimes for people on the autism spectrum, it's not as obvious who that person is. So we try to create those mentor-mentee relationships with the workplace champion.

And these are Chris's words. Literally we sat in my office, and he shared. I said, well, aside from the job, what are some of the other things that you thought really weren't expected or things that really made you excited to be part of a team to work?

So meeting new people. He said, when I went to day hab, I was with the same people every day. The new people I met were when staff left and new staff came. But at work I get to meet new people.

Celebrating birthdays-- think about the companies we work in. The pandemic changed that a little bit, but do people celebrate one another's birthdays? Do you have a sunshine fund? Do you do things like that? This was something that he talked about being very overwhelmed and excited when his birthday was celebrated. He didn't think they would celebrate him.

Holiday bonuses-- and I reminded him that they're much better in the corporate world than the nonprofit. Attending the company holiday party, being at a holiday party, these are things when we think about what neurotypical adults may experience. Listening to Chris, how does that impact?

And his words included in so much. So he talked about trade shows, UBS Arena games-- that was a perk for employees. He got to go to see Islanders games. Delivering turkeys to the food pantry in Wyandanch is something the business does. Many businesses do. He was part of that. And again, celebration.

So data is so important in how we approach assessment, how we approach placement. There has to be data behind that. But some of this you really can't measure on an Excel spreadsheet. This is stuff that is the intangible stuff that really can change people's quality of life.

Oops. I'm impatient. Sorry about that.

So Chris has opted to make a change in his career. I promise I did not pressure him at all. So little history, from January 2020 to July 27, 2022, the Winters Center for Autism offices were in Winters Brothers because we were building a center across the street. So we were in 500 square feet.

And we were, as I said, working really hard to meet people, find out what type of jobs they wanted, call employers, potential employer partners to say, do you have space? because we'd like to run a training program in your space for adults with autism.

But you have to be willing to hire these people competitively at the conclusion of their training. And that was a big ask because oftentimes businesses can get accustomed with high school students to getting help, where people can train for a job, but it doesn't always lead to paid employment upon graduation, just because that's a training site.

So we were fortunate to actually work with very diverse businesses, Winters Brothers being the first because they had this model before I arrived, before the Winters Center for Autism was conceived. And we still work with Long Island Select Healthcare, which is a federally qualified health care center, eight locations across Suffolk County. We work with Yonida International Trading, which is actually also in West Babylon, and heard about the program and reached out to us to be considered as an employer partner.

We work with a bead factory, which is tucked away in Farmingdale. And whoever knew the largest distributor of gems, rhinestones, and beads, to Broadway, to Disney, is actually located right in our backyard? And we have two ecstatically thrilled young women who are very crafty, who sort and count the beads as they're paid now. And they are golden to this business.

And I really give so much credit to our employer partners. We're working with Stony Brook Medicine and their equipment transport location. We also have three businesses that are part of the Winters Center for Autism.

So we have this 14,000 square foot building. But within that, we have three businesses open to the public-- Nelly's Empanadas, so food service. So people have the opportunity to train with us but then to test the waters with the public. We have Mike's Custom Cuts, which this is his third location because he has, if anybody's ever been to Mike's in Walt Whitman mall in Smithtown, his third location is in West Babylon.

And we also have the Music Academy, which has its flagship location in Hauppauge and has opened up a location in our building and hired one of our young adults on the autism spectrum to be an instructor there because he is a musician, very well-accomplished musician. So we're building our resume with employer partners because, and it's really one person at a time.

And my colleague today is going to visit EQ Salon in Smithtown because they are second. We have a barber shop, but now we're looking for a salon so that, as people train with us and then do test the waters, I say, with businesses in our building open to the public, that we have places and relationships for people to go to and really fulfill what their goals are for employment.

And you can imagine my fret. He wanted to resign from Winters Brothers to come work as a receptionist because, when he saw the position posted, he felt that the receptionist was the best of both worlds. It was all the skills he learned working in accounts payable, but it was also customer service.

He was able to see new people each day, greet them, direct them, take phone calls. So he went through six weeks of training, receptionist training, customer service training, and he is the face you meet every morning when you come into the building. So he has been such a success and stayed on per diem at Winters Brothers because he's so valuable, has become a staple at trade shows and at specific sales events. So he actually has two jobs now. Way to go, Chris.

So this is Winters Brothers. It says today and ends at 2020, but it's still 17 adults. We're not going to have 100 adults with autism working at Winters Brothers because natural proportions is something to consider as well. That's something that we had to make a decision on early on.

Do we want to have a product that we sell and hire mostly adults with autism? Or do we want to work with businesses in the community and help people naturally assimilate into their communities or into the counties where they reside?

So this shows you from when Chris started, in 2015 and 2016, two employees and then increased. And what I found when I came to Winters Brothers is that there are people with autism that work there that are predominantly nonverbal, and the tasks that they engage in are just as powerful and as meaningful as their full-time staff accountants and, really, all different types of jobs in between, working on running software reports.

They just do such an incredible job, as most of our employer partners do, at really identifying and tailoring the tasks to create success but making it really valuable for the business. So what does workplace success look like at Winters Brothers? It's really about aptitude and interest.

Think about when we excel. I would not excel if I had Peter's job in IT. I would probably have called in sick today. So it's what we're good at and what we're interested in.

And that's a delicate conversation we have to have with some young adults and sometimes their families, is that you may have a food service business, and everybody in your family has gone into a food service business. And you want your son or daughter to be in a food service business. And they say they want to, but when we go through the assessment, it's really not what they're the best at.

So it's being able to expose people to different opportunities. But at Winters Brothers, these are examples of the different jobs that people are doing. And it's even expanded to include, as I said, people started out as accounting clerks and have actually moved into staff accounting positions. So they've graduated with their degrees from local colleges in accounting, probably not going to be a CPA, but certainly wants to be a staff accountant.

Two examples of that and have moved into those positions. And when you ask the company why, it's not charity. Never miss a day of work. Never come in late. Never have any drama. Always getting the job done. Very predictable, very reliable.

And when you talk to business owners today-- and also not hoping to be the CEO in six months. We have young people sometimes that want to move up the corporate ladder really quick. So when I think about and get feedback-- and we get feedback from all the businesses we work with.

And then I think about well, what about some of the accommodations you've had to make? Tell me about that. And I'd like to share this story because I think that it really speaks to employers that are listening or that are here or parents, even. We sometimes want to shield our children from adversity or just keep it together at work, just keep it together.

But sometimes you just need a little help. So one of the young men was nodding off at work. He was nodding off. And the reaction of one of the executive staff was, well, he has autism. He could probably just take a quick nap.

I was like, absolutely not, absolutely not, because what happens is then think about you graduating law school. And now you're in a firm, and one person gets to take a quick snooze. All of a sudden, they're like, oh, well, that's the golden child. Or that's the favorite. Or he must know someone.

So instead, we worked with the comptroller, who was this person's direct report, and said, well, how would you handle this with another employee? Well, I would talk to them about it. Well, what if they're really tired? What would you do?

And long story short, what they did is they decided upon having his 30-minute and two 15-minute breaks consolidated. He was able to take a nap in his car because he did have somewhat of a commute. He also was introduced to the really strong coffee in the break room at 3:00 PM. So he'd get his coffee, and he'd walk outside and get some fresh air and also given more guidance about his phone not being so accessible because that was something that seemed to just bring some level of distress.

And that was it. He didn't fall asleep anymore. And also told that you can't sleep at work. Just the obvious sometimes gets missed. You have to be able to say, if you fall asleep, you get fired. It's that clear.

So I share that because sometimes the fixes are not really overwhelming. So there's a lot of benefits to hiring people with autism. I touched on some of this-- lower absenteeism, higher retention, enhanced company culture, thinking about talent, obviously tax credit benefits, societal impact.

And when we think about how we approach employer partners, it's always really important-- and I share this with our employer partners-- that you're really getting an employee that is, in most cases going to be a long-term employee. This is somebody who's not going to jump for $0.50 an hour.

And just to give you an idea, the Winters Center for Autism, we have a bunch of different job training spaces. We're working on hospitality. So we're working with Long Island Hotels, which is a Marriott brand, training young adults in laundering and room attendant services. I used to call it housekeeping, but the term now is room attendant.

Huge workforce need. We have people who do a phenomenal job, and we have very listening employer partners because they want reliable people in their workforce. We're also doing a food service program, which helps people. And we're working with ST Joseph's University to be able to expand the culinary arts and work with our local food centers.

We're working with Suffolk County Department of Labor to connect us with many of these businesses and the Long Island Food Council. And then we also have a very extensive clerical and job business solutions program. So we don't have something for everyone, but we have a lot.

And what I loved is when we started, the first 50 participants who enrolled with us, nobody was interested in janitorial skills, which was great because, when I started in the field, that was like a one-way ticket for people with disabilities is, well, we can teach those janitorial skills. And we also have a very robust horticulture and gardening program, and we work with Cornell Cooperative Extension, who connected us with a master gardener. And we're having really good success and interest in that program as well.

So these are some of the businesses that are, really, leaders in the workplace supporting people with autism. I've communicated and worked with Home Depot and their program, Ken's Krew. Excellent program. Actually Home Depot has selected the Winters Center for Autism to be one of their quarterly workshop programs. So just last week, our horticulture and gardening participants learned how to put together vegetable planting beds and all of the steps involved with that, as well as setting them up and maintaining them for the spring.

And just another example of this is what we share with businesses. So if you're watching, hiring people with autism is good for business as well. 54 million Americans, represent the third largest segment in the US. 92% of Americans view companies hiring people with disabilities more favorably. 87% would prefer to give their business, and 5% would switch a brand.

So what does this mean? When we hear about diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, think about how much more we still have to do. Think about those unemployment statistics and think about how we individually, but together, can really be a force to further expand what we think about when we hear diversity, equity, and inclusion to include people on the autism spectrum as part of those initiatives.

And this is how we do it, one person at a time, because it really is that customized. It's that individualized. And it's absolutely attainable.

So this is my contact information and my email. And I really like to end on this slide because Randy Lewis was actually the person that inspired Joe Winters because he saw him at a conference at the el Center of Excellence in Jupiter, Florida, present. And he's father of a son with autism.

But this was the quote that really resonated with Joe Winters to say, like, what's the point? If you're successful, you have the power to do good. Why wouldn't you?

So thank you everyone. I really appreciate your time and attention, and I'd like to turn it over to Professor Levine.

[DESCRIPTION] Sam Levine replaces Christine Ponzio at the podium.

[SAM LEVINE] Thank you so much, Chris. Thank you for such a thoughtful and compelling presentation. The subtitle of today's presentation was Lessons from the Winters Center for Autism. And I think we learned so many very helpful lessons that hopefully many of our audience will be able to implement and draw from.

As you mentioned, Chris, every work experience is different for everyone. I'm fond of the saying that if you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism. And that's the reality that everyone is, of course, different.

I'm also fond of the saying that, nothing about us without us. And I'm so pleased we're dedicated to including individuals with disabilities as part of our programming. And although we missed you, Chris Cortale, we had the opportunity-- we hope you feel better soon.

We had the opportunity to hear from you, and that's so important for all of us. We look forward to future programming. I thank you all again for participating in today's event. Thank you again, John and DALSA, for your work on moving forward on our efforts.

Please do keep in touch. You have Winters Center's contact information. Feel free to contact me here at Touro Law school. And thank you again.

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[TEXT] Touro Talks, Touro University, touro.edu/tourotalks

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